BT's problems pile up

But Reg still backs Bonfield

It's been a bad weekend for the head boys at BT with the Sunday newspapers going to town on its £30 billion debt problem, falling share price and calls for senior management to resign.

The Sunday Telegraph City comment contained more venom that hooked-nose seasnake.

"If this [BT] were an ordinary company," said the paper, "its shareholders would have demanded, and got, a complete change of management many months ago since the current one has singularly failed to run it properly. But this is BT, which behaves as if it were still some semi-detached arm of government."

It then went on to catalogue CEO, Sir Peter Bonfield's, failures at BT before deciding: "If Bonfield had any shred of self-esteem he would clear his desk this weekend. But he has clung on for so long that he seems inured to any sense of personal failure."

The Sunday Times reported that institutional investors are to press for non-executive directors to "back or sack" BT chairman, Sir Iain Vallance, and Bonfield.

This is necessary, it reports, to try and end the speculation and uncertainty that has plagued the debt-burdened outfit.

In another article, the Sunday Times claims that Bonfield has "lost control of the company's destiny".

The Observer speculates on that non-executive director, Tony Greener, could replace Vallance and former Orange boss, Hans Snook, could take over from Bonfield.

However, The Register is heartened by reports of that both Bonfield and Vallance are still hanging on in there.

Worryingly, El Reg is still a lone voice in supporting these guys and has received few words of support for the duo. But we still reckon they're doing a tremendous job and that the mounting criticism is just simply unwarranted... ®